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Review Tacticular Cancer reviews Eador: Genesis

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
Joined
Dec 12, 2002
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About 8 meters beneath sea level.
Tags: Eador: Genesis; GOG.com; Snowbird Games

From the cold steppes of the East comes quite a surprise. Russian 2010 indie hit Eador: Genesis got itself an English translation by the folks from Snowbird Games and is finally available for the wider world on GOG.com. And I'm happy to say it's a winner.
By drawing comparisons to such classic games as Master of Magic, HoMM III and Age of Wonders it really sets itself up to be compared to the best in the genre. Eador: Genesis also includes a lot of mechanics that in one way or another remind of these classics. So, how does it fare when stacked up? Amazingly well in my opinion. The graphics have a nice artstyle to them but really are nothing truly special. The almost complete lack of animations could turn quite a few people off as well. For those that look past these low production values however there is a game underneath that seems to open up layer after layer of gameplay as you learn its intricacies. Basic gameplay isn't too hard to learn. You hire some troops and a hero, go conquer some provinces, build buildings and try to take over a shard. However within that framework you'll soon discover that you constantly learn new things. How to build up your heroes or finding out that inactivity will doom you as certainly as overexpanding does. Same as making the transition from smaller shards to bigger ones means you'll have to adept your entire strategy.

Here's our Tacticular Cancer review of Eador: Genesis
 
Last edited by a moderator:

belated

Augur
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Mar 17, 2011
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311
Will definitely get this soon. Probably after the christmas sales on gog and steam.
 

Overboard

Arcane
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Mar 21, 2009
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719
Nice review of a great game. Do fix the link for the performance fixes, and an editor would tighten the review up.
 

Alex

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Thanks, Trash! After hearing so many praises to it, I will definitely try it too. I wonder why it seems impossible to get a 4X like Master of Magic again, though. Given how many people seem to praise it and how influential it was, it just seems strange we never get a game quite like it.
 
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The name never caught my eye before as it has that very generic indie sci-fi game vibe. Doesn't suit it at all.

The game looks and sounds great though. I will have to check this out
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
You really must, it's the next best thing since HoMM 2/3 and MoM.
It doesn't beat MoM but it doesn't have to. It's different enough to be comfortable in its own spot and I can't help but recommend it to anyone who likes those games.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
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Terra da Garoa
Just bought it, very interesting so far.

Also, not to be a graphics whore, but I saw the Eador: Masters of the Broken World screens and wow! This level of complexity with great production, sounds very promising!
 

Trash

Pointing and laughing.
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Messages
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About 8 meters beneath sea level.
I didn't even know TC has its own page!

http://www.tacticularcancer.com/

emot-pseudo.gif
 

Borelli

Arcane
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Dec 5, 2012
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So what's with all those Master of Magic comparisons? Where are they coming from?
seinfelsmall.jpg


Seriously i don't see much in common except both being fantastic games.
 

Kane

I have many names
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015

Why does it look like shit?

And I mean literally. It's all next-gen brown with piss-processing.

shit-piss filter is next-gen and therefore the only acceptable way to do web 2.0

what color sheme would you suggest for this prestigious site, skyway? and please not the ukrainian nationals, blue/yellow looks like someone took a piss in a pool (also smurfs).
 

MetalCraze

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Web 2.0 is not next-gen
Web 3.0 is next gen and Codex should struggle to reach it before everyone else does

Bro you can always go for white, red and black - colors of Germany.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2010
Messages
3,524
Fuck this game. Every time I have run the game and closed it my computer has locked up either immediately or shortly after, and I'm not talking about a "not responding" but a complete freeze requiring system reset.
 

Lightknight

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 26, 2008
Messages
705
I was convinced it cheated like hell but it seems that apart from some starting bonuses it doesn't
Oh yes it does. It has a serious advantage in gold, AND it can pull rare units like minotaurs or trolls right out of its ass, without actually having a recruit spot in any of its provinces. Oh, and also it can hire several guards per turn. Not sure about buildings, but guards - yeah, it does.
 

Larendav

Educated
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Nov 28, 2012
Messages
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I love the style of the game & the game itself so far. Its an easy runner up for turn-based strategy game of the decade for me. Now these Masters of the Broken World screenshots... Holy hot fuck.
EadorMBW-6.jpg
eador_masters_of_the_broken_world_image4.jpg
 

mondblut

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Ingrija
Meanwhile, hotfix 2 for Eador: Genesis has just been released through GOG's Universal Updater (whatever it is). It fixes the issue with mainquest-related provinces having "--" for a name, and hopefully eliminates all cases where text didn't fit its window and got cut or went outside its borders.
 

SCO

Arcane
In My Safe Space
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Feb 3, 2009
Messages
16,320
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Didn't like it.

See that first screenshoot above? Every tile there is a combat encounter in genesis (even the ones without cities). 'Exploring' the tile gives more combat encounters. Multiply that by the size of the shard, and the need to level up heroes, the fact that when the other lords find you you are into the rape express and will get regular visits and you have the definition of grind as business-as-usual.

Then you win, and can spend the next shard doing it all over again (with very minor automatic upgrades to your desmene ('castle') if you you want to spend the currency, which by the way, it's the least painful part of the early game because it's so easy, only requiring some early turns until you get to the build you want - if you have the gold, which you get by... grinding -'exploring'- locations.

This approximately x60 shards, if i'm extrapolating correctly. There is also a 'hidden object' game that requires you to find one particular tile and exploring it for a hidden ending, if that's how you roll, which is thankfully mitigated by a translation bug.

Comparing this to Age of Wonders or Master of Magic is blasphemy in my opinion.
AoW had the same problem with the campaign, in that every new map you had to start all over again, but at least the grind there wasn't so relentless (which is what Trash is probably describing as 'inactivity').

End result of the games is a lot of yeah, somewhat variable combat scenarios, where unfortunately you often can't afford to change your's armies, but also a lot of relentless repeated, regular combat encounters (against enemy heroes) in-between the 'normal' 1-2 battles per turn, only to have it happen allover again.

If someone replies that you don't have to 'grind' in Eador, just ignore them. The game warped their perception of the concept.

It would be much better if the game would allow you to transfer items you found in a shard if you want to spend the overview currency (energy) instead of creating (useless) standard items on the starting city. I guess that was deemed too unbalancing (like a full blown developed hero would be i guess) because each shard is '0-to-hero' thing and some of the items you can get are extreme.
 

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